Free Software Matters:
Free Software or Open Source?

Because use of free software is expanding so rapidly, most of the people
now using it haven't been part of the community for very long. So they are
often puzzled by rhetorical disagreements familiar to the habitué.
What's the difference between ``free software'' and ``open source''? Why do
some people seem to feel so strongly about it and is this apparent division a
real problem for the future of the software?

It is very important that the two phrases do in fact denote the same
object. Both the Free Software Foundation (which publishes the GNU General
Public Licenses and holds assignments of copyright for protecting the freedom
of many essential components of free software, including GNU Emacs, GCC, GDB,
and Glibc) and the Open Source Initiative (which has worked hard to publicize
the conception of ``open source'' through its Open Source Definition) support
and encourage software that can be freely modified and redistributed by its
users.

Why the two terms? The ``open source'' phrase stems from a decision taken
in 1998 by a group of contributors to the free software movement to adopt a
new strategy for assisting in the ``corporate adoption'' of the GPL and other
free software licenses. These developers and supporters of free software
believed that a more explicitly ``pragmatic'' approach to presenting its
benefits--stressing the inevitable practical improvement in quality over
ethical or moral arguments in favor of free licensing--would result in wider
corporate support and ``mainstream'' press coverage of the phenomenon.

In one sense, then, ``open source'' was a phrase that entered the language
lately, intended mostly for its public relations value, like a change of brand
name in the marketing of any other product. In the heyday of General Motors,
whether they called it a Pontiac or a Buick you got the same car. But in
fact, as it turned out, the difference in phraseology after 1998 paralleled an
underlying preexisting diversity.

Everyone, including the ``pragmatists'' who promote free software on the
perfectly valid ground that it's inherently better, would agree that there is
something important about the ``freedom'' of the software itself. It's not
only that open development models produce better code by putting more, and
more motivated, eyes on it. There's also a shared recognition that software
the user can't freely modify ``takes over'' her computer in a way that limits
her ability to create, to protect her privacy, and to achieve other goals
associated with the personal autonomy we call ``freedom.'' This is an ethical
and political justification for free software that would be equally endorsed,
I believe, by all advocates of ``open source.''

But programmers and other members of the free software community also
belong to other communities where their political ideas are acquired and
refined. So the context in which individuals interpret the ``freedom''
associated with free software varies. Some community members have a basically
libertarian outlook. Their conception of freedom includes a strong preference
for property rights. The institutions of free software are in some
recognizable tension with property rights, they understand, but this is
entirely the result of personal choice by individual copyright owners to treat
their property in the ``open source'' fashion, in order to achieve practical
benefits. The overall advantage to society created by this creation of a
commons is nice, but it isn't the reason for doing what is done.

Other members of the free software community have more communitarian or
anarchist political ideas. Their belief in freedom does not include a strong
preference for property institutions. ``Property rights'' for them are
outcomes of potentially unjust social decisions rather than natural
entitlements. The tension between free software institutions and traditional
property conceptions reflects an ethical benefit to society at large. Free
software manages to achieve for the network a superior social state to the one
enforced by material necessity in the world of physical products that can't be
copied for everyone at no additional cost. The strongest expression of this
position comes from Richard M. Stallman, the founder of the Free Software
Foundation and the creator of the free software movement, who considers the
distribution of non-free software an unethical act. Despite that personal
moral position, Stallman's GNU General Public Licenses permit not only the
commercial distribution of free software, but also its combination in
commercial distribution with non-free software, which is why free software
systems based on those licenses are capable of their present commercial
success.

These underlying political differences are significant. They sometimes
imply different policy orientations with respect to issues facing free
software. But in my experience providing legal assistance to the movement
over the past decade, long before the ``open source'' label existed, such
policy differences have been few and have been fairly easy to resolve. The
political division is more important in two other respects, one positive and
one negative. Identification of ``open source'' and ``free software'' with
external sources of political enthusiasm increases the energy with which
people may be attracted to the software itself. If the advocates of ``open
source'' see the advantage of their position in recruiting attention from
libertarian entrepreneurs and right-leaning business journalists, members of
the ``free software'' movement can frame the ethical appeal that equally
attracts progressive programmers, investors, foundations, and opinion-makers.
As the free software movement becomes ever more globalized, taking in a full
range of the technically-educated population around the world, the balance of
opinion within the community will no doubt change. The presence of these
diverse cultural frameworks is an asset in that process.

On the other hand, within the community itself the effect is to intensify
the rhetoric, sometimes disadvantageously. Moral positions are deeply felt,
and outside the range of agreement that commits them to free software, the two
tempers of mind disagree strongly. The community contains both pragmatists
and true believers, and as with all communities so composed, tempers will run
high sometimes.

So is the dialog between ``open source'' and ``free software'' a threat to
free software's future? Not at all. The free software idea is irreversibly
embedded in the fabric of the Internet Society. As it grows larger, the
movement behind that idea will go through many transformations, and its
meaning will remain contested. But those of us who are committed to its
success don't all have to be pushing in exactly the same direction in order to
help it along. Whatever the names we use, we know what we're talking about,
and we know why Free Software Matters.

*Eben
Moglen is professor of law and legal history at Columbia University Law
School. He serves without fee as General Counsel of the Free Software
Foundation. You can read more of his writing at moglen.law.columbia.edu.